258 RECENT YEARS

the Princes and Peoples of India, and by that alone, can realisa-
tion be given to the noble words of Victoria, the Great Queen,
as expressed in a famous Proclamation.

They are these: "In their prosperity will be our strength;
in their contentment our security; in their
gratitude our best reward.'*

May we all labour whole-heartedly, with mutual trust and good-
will, for the attainment of so great an end.'

More was not needed; the Conference had not begun
its work. The Maharaja summed up, in a few words, the
general feeling of loyalty to the Throne and the hopes
that were rising high in every Indian breast.

Thereafter the Round Table Conference sat continu-
ously for two calendar months at St. James's Palace,
where there was visible testimony to the Maharaja's long
and influential connexion with the advancement of India.
Among the pictures on the walls of the Ambassador's
Room, used by the delegates as a lounge, is Val Prinsep's
great canvas of the Proclamation Durbar at Delhi on the
ist January 1877, to announce the assumption by Queen
Victoria of the title of Empress of India. In embossed
letters on the frame the names of the most important
Ruling Princes are given, and that of 'Baroda' shows His
Highness, then a lad of thirteen, closely following the
proceedings. His membership of the Conference thus
made a direct personal link—the only one possible—
between the historic ceremony of fifty-three years ago and
a momentous Conference which set the ship of State in
the Indian Empire towards federal government.

The presence of the Maharaja exerted a strong and
broad-minded influence upon the inner counsels of the
States' Delegation. By reason of his seniority, his great
services to the cause of Indian progress and the high
respect in which he was held, the Maharaja took the first
place on many occasions.